No abstract

This literature review focused on passenger seat comfort and discomfort in a human-product-context interaction. The relationships between anthropometric variables (human level), activities (context level), seat characteristics (product level) and the perception of comfort and discomfort were studied through mediating variables, such as body posture, movement and interface pressure. It is concluded that there are correlations between anthropometric variables and interface pressure variables, and that this relationship is affected by body posture. The results of studies on the correlation between pressure variables and passenger comfort and discomfort are not in line with each other. Only associations were found between the other variables (e.g. activities and seat characteristics). A conceptual model illustrates the results of the review, but relationships could not be quantified due to a lack of statistical evidence and large differences in research set-ups between the reviewed papers. Practitioner Summary: This literature review set out to quantify the relationships between human, context and seat characteristics, and comfort and discomfort experience of passenger seats, in order to build a predictive model that can support seat designers and purchasers to make informed decisions. However, statistical evidence is lacking from existing literature.

Working in the train is a part of new ways of working. However, the ideal working position is unknown. Moreover, the ideal position for leisure and relaxing is also unknown. This article defines what activities train passengers mainly perform and which corresponding postures are seen. Based on the observations on actual train rides, four main activities could be identified: Reading, Staring/sleeping, Talking and Working on laptop. Working on laptop was the activity with the longest duration and talking had the shortest duration. Associated with these four activities, a top eight of different postures were observed. Except for headrest comfort, comfort scores were not significantly different between activities. The top eight corresponding postures combined with comfort scores showed that per activity different postures were observed and the comfort scores varied in relation to the combination of posture and activity. Nearly for all activities, the majority of passengers preferred adjustability options to fit the seat to the performed activity.